Ning Feng Born in Chengdu, China, Ning Feng studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music and London’s Royal Academy of Music where he was the first student ever to be awarded 100% for his final recital. The recipient of prizes at...

was born into a family of musicians, and from my earliest years, I was encouraged to make music at home with my parents. From my father, Hu Wei Ming, a violinist and professor at the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, I learned all the Violin duets by BLA BARTK at a very early age, and came to love them. When I discovered the close relationship between Bartok's Hungarian folk traditions and the folk traditions of China, I was greatly surprised: the peasant songs of Sichuan's minority people, the Yi, were very much like Hungarian folk music! These early discoveries were of decisive importance in leading me to undertake an unusual musical journey, together with Ning Feng. We hope that with this CD, we can encourage and support the mutual understanding between China and Europe.

Russia, the vast country between China and Europe, has had a particularly strong influence on Chinese musical life because of its performers and composers. For this reason, we decided to begin with SERGEI PROKOFIEV's Sonata for two violins. Right from the beginning, one senses that this music is telling us about Russia's endless expanses, in the way that a painter would depict the landscape of the Steppes on a great stretch of canvas. Even though Prokofiev only reluctantly admitted that the grotesque played an important role in his music, one can clearly sense this in the second and fourth movements.

PAUL HINDEMITH's Kanonische Variationen (Canonic variations) are completely different in conception. One can already see this from the title: both of the violins usually play exactly the same notes, not simultaneously, but one after the other. This intellectual game, which has fascinated humanity for hundreds of years, is given additional depth through a series of variations. In order to understand this better, we should imagine the theme, played by the voices closely following each other, as expressing the oriental character (Ying or Yang, respectively); the subsequent variations would be Feng (the gentle movement of the wind) and Shui (the quiet rushing of water). This gives the composition a mysterious, enigmatic quality, in spite of its clearly-defined structure.

Some years ago, when I was on a concert tour in China, I became acquainted with the works of the Chinese composer YANG BAU ZHI. I am very proud and grateful that he has dedicated his Drei Humoresken in Form von Kanon (Three Humoresques in canonic form) to us. These three pieces are based on Chinese Ho Nan folk traditions, and the canonic form is an ideal pendant to Paul Hindemith's canonic variations. PUHAN WANG's 'Scene of a Chinese Village' and HU XIAO U's 'Silent Forest and Raving Wind' convey to us a typically Chinese scene from life, and the pastoral atmosphere of the Orient, respectively.

Istrischer Tanz (Istrian Dance), by the young Croatian pianist and composer DEJAN LAZIC, was composed in 2005. This is the newest work on this CD, and it presents us with a new world of tonality. Istria, the Croatian peninsula, surrounded by the Adriatic Sea, has been able to preserve its remarkable and individual folk music for many centuries, in spite of the proximity of Italy. This music is known for its strange and exotic modes, incomparable rhythmic structures, and unique instruments. The sixteen-bar theme at the beginning of the piece is peformed, in the original folk setting, by two 'Sopels instruments similar to the oboe. Dejan Lazic found an ideal basis in this two-voice structure for further thematic development within the context of the musical language of Istria. In this way, it constitutes a pendant to Bartok's Serbischer Tanz (Serbian Dance).

A popular piece, the Song of Emancipation, was arranged as part of the Cultural Revolution in China. This cheerful and solemn music comes form northern Chinese Shang Bei folk music, and provides a 'happy end'.

was born into a family of musicians, and from my earliest years, I was encouraged to make music at home with my parents. From my father, Hu Wei Ming, a violinist and professor at the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, I learned all the Violin duets by BLA BARTK at a very early age, and came to love them. When I discovered the close relationship between Bartok's Hungarian folk traditions and the folk traditions of China, I was greatly surprised: the peasant songs of Sichuan's minority people, the Yi, were very much like Hungarian folk music! These early discoveries were of decisive importance in leading me to undertake an unusual musical journey, together with Ning Feng. We hope that with this CD, we can encourage and support the mutual understanding between China and Europe.
Russia, the vast country between China and Europe, has had a particularly strong influence on Chinese musical life because of its performers and composers. For this reason, we decided to begin with SERGEI PROKOFIEV's Sonata for two violins. Right from the beginning, one senses that this music is telling us about Russia's endless expanses, in the way that a painter would depict the landscape of the Steppes on a great stretch of canvas. Even though Prokofiev only reluctantly admitted that the grotesque played an important role in his music, one can clearly sense this in the second and fourth movements.
PAUL HINDEMITH's Kanonische Variationen (Canonic variations) are completely different in conception. One can already see this from the title: both of the violins usually play exactly the same notes, not simultaneously, but one after the other. This intellectual game, which has fascinated humanity for hundreds of years, is given additional depth through a series of variations. In order to understand this better, we should imagine the theme, played by the voices closely following each other, as expressing the oriental character (Ying or Yang, respectively); the subsequent variations would be Feng (the gentle movement of the wind) and Shui (the quiet rushing of water). This gives the composition a mysterious, enigmatic quality, in spite of its clearly-defined structure.
Some years ago, when I was on a concert tour in China, I became acquainted with the works of the Chinese composer YANG BAU ZHI. I am very proud and grateful that he has dedicated his Drei Humoresken in Form von Kanon (Three Humoresques in canonic form) to us. These three pieces are based on Chinese Ho Nan folk traditions, and the canonic form is an ideal pendant to Paul Hindemith's canonic variations. PUHAN WANG's 'Scene of a Chinese Village' and HU XIAO U's 'Silent Forest and Raving Wind' convey to us a typically Chinese scene from life, and the pastoral atmosphere of the Orient, respectively.
Istrischer Tanz (Istrian Dance), by the young Croatian pianist and composer DEJAN LAZIC, was composed in 2005. This is the newest work on this CD, and it presents us with a new world of tonality. Istria, the Croatian peninsula, surrounded by the Adriatic Sea, has been able to preserve its remarkable and individual folk music for many centuries, in spite of the proximity of Italy. This music is known for its strange and exotic modes, incomparable rhythmic structures, and unique instruments. The sixteen-bar theme at the beginning of the piece is peformed, in the original folk setting, by two 'Sopels instruments similar to the oboe. Dejan Lazic found an ideal basis in this two-voice structure for further thematic development within the context of the musical language of Istria. In this way, it constitutes a pendant to Bartok's Serbischer Tanz (Serbian Dance).
A popular piece, the Song of Emancipation, was arranged as part of the Cultural Revolution in China. This cheerful and solemn music comes form northern Chinese Shang Bei folk music, and provides a 'happy end'.

Ning Feng Born in Chengdu, China, Ning Feng studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music and London’s Royal Academy of Music where he was the first student ever to be awarded 100% for his final recital. The recipient of prizes at...

was born into a family of musicians, and from my earliest years, I was encouraged to make music at home with my parents. From my father, Hu Wei Ming, a violinist and professor at the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, I learned all the Violin duets by BLA BARTK at a very early age, and came to love them. When I discovered the close relationship between Bartok's Hungarian folk traditions and the folk traditions of China, I was greatly surprised: the peasant songs of Sichuan's minority people, the Yi, were very much like Hungarian folk music! These early discoveries were of decisive importance in leading me to undertake an unusual musical journey, together with Ning Feng. We hope that with this CD, we can encourage and support the mutual understanding between China and Europe.

Russia, the vast country between China and Europe, has had a particularly strong influence on Chinese musical life because of its performers and composers. For this reason, we decided to begin with SERGEI PROKOFIEV's Sonata for two violins. Right from the beginning, one senses that this music is telling us about Russia's endless expanses, in the way that a painter would depict the landscape of the Steppes on a great stretch of canvas. Even though Prokofiev only reluctantly admitted that the grotesque played an important role in his music, one can clearly sense this in the second and fourth movements.

PAUL HINDEMITH's Kanonische Variationen (Canonic variations) are completely different in conception. One can already see this from the title: both of the violins usually play exactly the same notes, not simultaneously, but one after the other. This intellectual game, which has fascinated humanity for hundreds of years, is given additional depth through a series of variations. In order to understand this better, we should imagine the theme, played by the voices closely following each other, as expressing the oriental character (Ying or Yang, respectively); the subsequent variations would be Feng (the gentle movement of the wind) and Shui (the quiet rushing of water). This gives the composition a mysterious, enigmatic quality, in spite of its clearly-defined structure.

Some years ago, when I was on a concert tour in China, I became acquainted with the works of the Chinese composer YANG BAU ZHI. I am very proud and grateful that he has dedicated his Drei Humoresken in Form von Kanon (Three Humoresques in canonic form) to us. These three pieces are based on Chinese Ho Nan folk traditions, and the canonic form is an ideal pendant to Paul Hindemith's canonic variations. PUHAN WANG's 'Scene of a Chinese Village' and HU XIAO U's 'Silent Forest and Raving Wind' convey to us a typically Chinese scene from life, and the pastoral atmosphere of the Orient, respectively.

Istrischer Tanz (Istrian Dance), by the young Croatian pianist and composer DEJAN LAZIC, was composed in 2005. This is the newest work on this CD, and it presents us with a new world of tonality. Istria, the Croatian peninsula, surrounded by the Adriatic Sea, has been able to preserve its remarkable and individual folk music for many centuries, in spite of the proximity of Italy. This music is known for its strange and exotic modes, incomparable rhythmic structures, and unique instruments. The sixteen-bar theme at the beginning of the piece is peformed, in the original folk setting, by two 'Sopels instruments similar to the oboe. Dejan Lazic found an ideal basis in this two-voice structure for further thematic development within the context of the musical language of Istria. In this way, it constitutes a pendant to Bartok's Serbischer Tanz (Serbian Dance).

A popular piece, the Song of Emancipation, was arranged as part of the Cultural Revolution in China. This cheerful and solemn music comes form northern Chinese Shang Bei folk music, and provides a 'happy end'.

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